ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I have not seen these anywhere, but I think they apply across the board regardless of build.

Dungeons:
1. Boss encounters don't happen until level 3 of the newbie dungeons. Depending on building this will be hard. You will get to level 2 in the first two levels. Virtually every start has 2 newbie dungeons you can go through (I think the dwarf one you pay for you have to go through the first dungeon completely). So you can go to the first 2 levels. Then go to the newbie dungeon a few moves a way. They are always close. You can find the map. go through the first 2 levels there and get to level 3, plus get more drops. Go back to the first dungeon (2nd one is a little harder, so finish first one) and then you will be considerably stronger. One more level early is alot, plus the extra item drops.

2. There are atleast 6 total newbie dungeons. You can do this for all of them before facing any boss monsters. Some of the newbie dungeons are harder than others, but they don't have any bosses until level 3.

3. If you do #2, get the Zombnibus add on. There is a mod in there that lets you choose to fight random adventuring parties on the map. Without it, if you run into them (and you will) they always attack ). These can be very hard... It makes the game alot easier and lets you move around. Some people won't like it, but its good for new players.

Stats/Skills:
1. unless you are doing a 100% archer or mage build (and even then), Strength is the best state early. You may need to raise others as well to get your skills up, but 1 additional point of physical power per point early makes killing things much quicker. For alot of builds you stop after a few levels and go back to more valuable stats. Do this if you find you don't kill stuff fast enough in melee. For example been playing a Thalore/Thyrmic... Been doing enough will to get Bellowing Rage and rest to STR for few few levels. Then stop and switch to Wil/Con.

2. General Skills: 3 levels of armor is important early for most builds since you will probably find significant armor upgrades that you need this for really early. 2 levels are necessary for shield if you are using it. if doing melee get the weapons mastery a few levels to do damage after that.

3. Best Armor: Anything that says 'damage (melee). It means everytime a bad guy hits you it takes damage. This is huge early in the game when bad guy HP is low. It also stacks. By mid-game its not real valuable since HP is higher and your better off focusing on defense/resistance.

4. Offensive Skills: Unless your build has a really good skill that hits alot of targets at once (like Wyrmics Bellowing Rage), focus on getting several skills at low levels. Each skill has a cool down and your better off having several than 1 really good one that hits 1 guy early. Bad guys don't have alot of HP early on.

What to spend gold on:
1. try to upgrade your Infusion: Regeneration to one that scales with one of your primary stats and heals more damage
2. buy an instant heal rune.

being able to heal is critical.

youtoo wrote:1. Boss encounters don't happen until level 3 of the newbie dungeons. Depending on building this will be hard. You will get to level 2 in the first two levels. Virtually every start has 2 newbie dungeons you can go through (I think the dwarf one you pay for you have to go through the first dungeon completely). So you can go to the first 2 levels. Then go to the newbie dungeon a few moves a way. They are always close. You can find the map. go through the first 2 levels there and get to level 3, plus get more drops. Go back to the first dungeon (2nd one is a little harder, so finish first one) and then you will be considerably stronger. One more level early is alot, plus the extra item drops.

Starting dungeon is almost always based on race (elves, halflings, and humans can get special class-based starter dungeons as well). All dwarves have that inescapable starting dungeon, and the unlockable races (and a handful of unlockable classes) have inescapable dungeons of their own. That being said, your trick works for any elf, halfing, or human who doesn't get a class-based dungeon. That being said, you'll get less exp and loot from the second dungeon if you do so, since the dungeon's level is based on your own when you first visit it.

3. If you do #2, get the Zombnibus add on. There is a mod in there that lets you choose to fight random adventuring parties on the map. Without it, if you run into them (and you will) they always attack ). These can be very hard... It makes the game alot easier and lets you move around. Some people won't like it, but its good for new players.

Adventuring parties are actually pretty easy to evade in most areas. Still, I doubt anyone will look down on you for disabling them.

1. unless you are doing a 100% archer or mage build (and even then), Strength is the best state early. You may need to raise others as well to get your skills up, but 1 additional point of physical power per point early makes killing things much quicker. For alot of builds you stop after a few levels and go back to more valuable stats. Do this if you find you don't kill stuff fast enough in melee. For example been playing a Thalore/Thyrmic... Been doing enough will to get Bellowing Rage and rest to STR for few few levels. Then stop and switch to Wil/Con.

Debatable. Mages, in particular, get almost no benefit from Strength (if you're hitting someone with your staff, you're already dead). The only stat that just about everyone wants is Con (Thick Skin is a very good talent).

2. General Skills: 3 levels of armor is important early for most builds since you will probably find significant armor upgrades that you need this for really early. 2 levels are necessary for shield if you are using it. if doing melee get the weapons mastery a few levels to do damage after that.

Rogues probably actually care about the fatigue of massive plate armour, and mages definitely should stick with robes.

3. Best Armor: Anything that says 'damage (melee). It means everytime a bad guy hits you it takes damage. This is huge early in the game when bad guy HP is low. It also stacks. By mid-game its not real valuable since HP is higher and your better off focusing on defense/resistance.

Assuming, of course, that you actually intend to be in melee.

4. Offensive Skills: Unless your build has a really good skill that hits alot of targets at once (like Wyrmics Bellowing Rage), focus on getting several skills at low levels. Each skill has a cool down and your better off having several than 1 really good one that hits 1 guy early. Bad guys don't have alot of HP early on.

Alternatively, you could get some low-cooldown skills. For instance, an Archmage really just needs three beam attacks to always have an attack option.

What to spend gold on:
1. try to upgrade your Infusion: Regeneration to one that scales with one of your primary stats and heals more damage
2. buy an instant heal rune.

being able to heal is critical.

Yeah, a better regen infusion should be priority #1. Priority #2, though, is an escape option (movement infusion, teleport rune, etc).

The stats you put down for the first couple of levels are generally whatever you need to unlock skills, both class and generic. The skills that you need to survive. Sometimes you get a choice.

I find for melee characters that have lower hitpoints, rouges come to mind, spending your build generic point on accuracy makes a huge difference for survivability. You don't do much damage, so you can't afford to miss often.

As for infusions/runes. Again your priorities change depending on your class and race. I find if I haven't found any runes/infusions in my first two dungeons I'm much better off going to a shop to buy something, even if I do get a drop.

For regen, it's better to get a regen infusion with a low cooldown then an extra few points of regeneration. Same for healing.
Movement infusions are an excellent escape and you should get one asap.If you find yourself slot poor, instead of a rune of teleport/phase door you can go to the Zigur town and buy a Torque of Psychoportation really cheap, like 11 gold or less. These are not magic, so you can't be silenced or disrupted out of it. If they don't have one for sale, they usually have torques of physical damage reduction, sometimes really good ones that block 100 damage for 5 turns or so, incredibly useful.

Don't wait until the very last moment to Teleport or escape. That is probably a huge lesson to learn in this game, know when the battle is lost well before it is lost. My general rule of thumb, if I'm down half-health and the enemy is not, its time to go. If lots of my skills are on cooldown, it's time to go. If your big opening moves miss/fail, it's time to go. Play it safe.